


for where there's sun you'll find a moon

by besidemethewholedamntime



Series: at the end of the day all i need is you [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Modern Royalty AU, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25077715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: 'Friendship with Fitz is easy, effortless. Even when he annoys her, he doesn’t really. He’s her favourite person in the whole world, the one person she can really count on. He grounds her, and reminds her who she really is: not HRH Jemma, Duchess of York, Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but simply Jemma, his best-friend. Everything else is irrelevant.'It's not easy being next in line to the British throne. A modern royalty AU.
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: at the end of the day all i need is you [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934755
Comments: 23
Kudos: 130





	for where there's sun you'll find a moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohfaiths](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfaiths/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLESYA! You're one of my most favourite beans in the whole wide world and I'm so thankful for you!! You're so kind and funny and talented and about a million other lovely adjectives that I don't have the space to type. I hope you enjoy this little modern royalty AU that I wrote for you and I hope you have a lovely day!
> 
> This fic should be mostly accurate regarding the Royal Family but I might have taken some liberties in places. It's a made up monarchy. It was either choosing between that and Fitzsimmons and well, we know what came up on top.
> 
> Title by Michael Faudet. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

Jemma makes her way daintily across fallen logs and wind-strewn leaves, or as daintily as she can in her old boots and thick winter jacket that her mother would prefer she didn’t wear. The weather has been downright awful for the past few days, and has left the ground soft and boggy. The normally manicured grass is full of twigs and stones. The flowerbeds are no longer quite as full as they were – over half the flowerheads having been ripped off and now lying in a somewhat sad congealed mess in the centre of the pond.

She smiles as she walks around the mess. This is the way it should be. Not perfect and precise but a little messy, a little wild. The grounds are returning to their natural state. _And,_ Jemma thinks, as she spies a familiar face waiting under a familiar tree, _so am I._

“I wasn’t sure if you would come,” Fitz says. “It wasn’t half blowing a gale.”

Jemma considers the wreckage around them. It wasn’t half, indeed. “How would your mother describe today?”

Fitz tilts his head to the overcast sky and the definite dampness that lingers in the air. Everything is so grey, and there are heavy clouds in the distance. “Dreich. She’d definitely say today was dreich.”

Dreich. The word is unpleasant and unfamiliar to say, but she finds that she loves it anyway. She can imagine Fitz’s mother standing in her immense drawing room, looking out over that hilly estate, and declaring the day very dreich indeed.

“I like it, and the weather. It isn’t half so much fun if it’s sunny. We’d be too hot after a while.”

“Fancy that, being too hot,” he grins, looking at the day all around them. “Come on then, let’s get going.” He peers behind her. “No goons today?”

“There’s no need to call them that. Thomas and Christopher are actually quite nice.” She gives him her best disapproving look. “We don’t need them today because we’re just staying on the grounds.”

“And are we?” It’s a challenge, one that she won’t rise to.

She shrugs. “We might as well. With the storm and whatnot they might not be the same grounds at all. Things might have changed.”

“God knows this place could use some change,” he mumbles, face darkening for only a moment. But then he adjusts the rucksack he’s carrying and his features become easy and open again. “We should get going then. After you, your royal highness.”

She throws him a dirty look but says nothing. He gets a kick out of winding her up, and she can hear his disappointed huff behind her as she does nothing but walk deeper into the forest. Occasionally she’ll push a wet branch out of the way, only to release it when she is past so it hits him with a soft _smack_ in the face.

“Jemma, just because your mother would kill me if I scratched your face, doesn’t mean I won’t find some other way to get you back.”

“I quite believe it,” she retorts. “But this too much fun to stop.”

“You’re quite the sadist underneath, you know.”

“Aren’t all royals really?”

Fitz seems to consider her point for a moment before saying, “You’d know more than me. They’re your family.”

It’s strange how often Jemma flinches at the word _family,_ or even at the suggestion that these people who are featured daily on the news are related to her. It’s not a suggestion, though. It’s the truth. It’s simply a fact, at its best. If somebody tells her that they’re simply her family and nothing else, then she can usually consider it to be a positive conversation.

They may be her family, but she has trouble reconciling herself as one of them. There’s a distance between her and the others, and not just because she’s the heir either. What excites them bores her. What disgusts them fascinates her. What makes them shake their head and turn off the television, has her leaning forward and turning it on for more.

A non-committal noise is the only sound she makes, and they continue the rest of their walk in silence, the only sound the trees moving in the wind, and fat raindrops hitting the dense canopy above them.

It doesn’t take them long to reach the small clearing, which has been their spot at this castle ever since they were children. Nannies used to have to accompany them down here for its depth into the forest and the nearby river which runs at some speed. Since they have been ten years old, however, they’ve been allowed down here without supervision, and it’s just the way they like it.

There’s an old stick den that’s been here since they were five, put together by the nannies and two protection officers. The ground is too soggy for that today, and so they forgo it in favour of the ginormous fallen log that they spread the blankets that Futz has brought. It’s slightly flattened in some places, and so they’re able to sit more than comfortably on it, Jemma even cross-legged.

“Right, what have you brought for me today?”

Jemma chuckles. “You always think of your stomach, don’t you?” She opens her own rucksack and brings out a plastic tub, unable to stop smiling at Fitz practically salivating in front of her. She opens the tub to show him the delicately packed pastries, nestled in amongst some baking paper.

“Marie says to tell you not to eat them all at once. She’s also packed some strawberry tarts for you, but she says you must give at least one to your mother and not eat them all to yourself.”

Fitz’s eyes glow as Jemma hands over a second container. He opens the lid slightly, grins, and closes it again before putting it immediately in his bag. “I knew Marie was my favourite of your chefs,” he says, before taking a small lemon tart out of the container Jemma offers. He takes a bite and makes a _mm_ sound. “Perfection, as always.”

“You never change,” she says fondly. “And she’s only your favourite because she’s the _pastry_ chef.”

“I happen to think she’s very kind actually, Jemma. But her skill is unmatched. I’d love to have a pastry chef.”

“You speak like you don’t have one. I’ve met your chef.”

“Correction,” he says, with his finger in the air. “We have a _cook._ And Mrs Bennet doesn’t make strawberry tarts that are half as delicious as these.”

“Sorry,” she says, rolling her eyes. “How awful it must be to have only a cook.”

“Yeah, well, not all of us can be princesses.”

She swots at him playfully. “You know I hate being called that.”

“It’s what you are, though.” He uses the back of his hand to wipe stray crumbs from his mouth and she wonders, not for the first time, how the son of a distinguished Army General could eat so sloppily. “Though you’re a Duchess now, aren’t you?”

Jemma thinks of the title bestowed upon her by her father for her birthday. A meaningless gift from him, and a reminder from her mother that usually one received these _after_ they were married. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

Fitz licks his fingers. “Where is it?”

“Ugh, Fitz,” she says, screwing her face up in disgust at his behaviour. “And it’s York.”

“What? You didn’t bring any napkins. And York’s a nice place. There could be worse things to be.”

“Such as being the Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?”

“Yeah,” he grins. “What a horrible job that would be. You didn’t actually bring any napkins, did you?”

She rolls her eyes but brings out some paper napkins that the footman had found for her and brought without blinking.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know what it was,” she tells him. “It was all over the news.”

“For about a minute.” This is what she likes about Fitz, he tells her the truth. If her grandmother were to be believed, then it was a week-long media event with opinions coming in from all over the world. “And I was visiting my mum. You know she doesn’t really like the news on when I visit.”

Jemma used to think that her and Fitz were similar. They were inquisitive children who loved nothing more than to spend all day roaming the grounds of whatever castle they found themselves in. They had nannies and tutors surrounding them most of their lives. They had absent fathers who chose duty to country above family, and who seemed determined that their children should not forget it.

They’re still similar, but circumstances have shaped them differently over the years. It’s natural. Expected. The one difference that has always been there, however, that has always stood them apart, has been the unwavering and constant love that Fitz’s mother has for her son.

“How is she? Jemma asks now. She’s met his mother a few times. A quiet, solid woman who sees and knows everything, but who tells nothing unless she has a very good reason.

“Good.,” Fitz nods, digging into his bag. “Here’s a letter she has for you. She says you should go visit her when you can.”

Jemma takes the proffered letter and tucks it deep into her bag where it won’t get wet or crushed. “I’ll try to,” she sighs. “As soon as Her Majesty sets me free.”

“Is she still utterly concerned with every second of your day?”

“Of course. There isn’t a minute of my day that she hasn’t accounted for. The only reason I’m free today and tomorrow is because she’s doing some opening of a new factory up north.” Jemma takes a lemon tart from the box and bites into it deeply, the bitterness of the lemon momentarily distracting her from her own bitterness towards her mother. “She’s obsessed with me, and convinced that everyone else should be, too. I’m not entirely convinced it’s not her calling the news whenever I go someplace.”

“I don’t know, I think you’re pretty well known enough that your mother doesn’t need to do that.”

It annoys her, but only because it’s true. “I hate it. I hate how the whole world is obsessed by what shoes I’m wearing or what yoghurt I’m eating.” She takes another bite, not caring that she’s eating exactly as sloppily as Fitz. “Why couldn’t we be like Sweden? The whole planet isn’t obsessed with the Swedish Royal Family.”

Fitz looks at her as though she’s being deliberately obtuse. “I think that might be because Sweden didn’t colonise seventy-five-percent of the planet.”

She blinks at him and then sighs. “You could try not always being right, Fitz,” she grumbles. “It wouldn’t kill you.”

“What?” He laughs. “You can’t be grumpy because I’m imitating you for a change. You always think you’re right.”

Friendship with Fitz is easy, effortless. Even when he annoys her, he doesn’t really. He’s her favourite person in the whole world, the one person she can really count on. He grounds her, and reminds her who she really is: not HRH Jemma, Duchess of York, Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but simply Jemma, his best-friend. Everything else is irrelevant.

It's something she’s been thinking about a lot lately as the relationship between her and the rest of her family continues to disintegrate, wasting away like the effects of a terrible disease until one day there is nothing left that is compatible with life. Of course, there will never be _nothing._ There simply can’t be because of who they are. They will always be bonded by something that very few people in the world could ever understand.

Lost in her thoughts she unpacks the rest of the picnic she has brought, knowing that Fitz might pay attention to the egg sandwiches and the fresh strawberries now that he has already sampled the cakes. Suddenly she feels a warm hand on her wrist and she jumps, startled more easily than she would like.

“What’s this?”

“Oh,” she says, going to tug down her jacket sleeve back over the white bandage on her wrist, but Fitz holds on firmly but gently. “Nothing?”

“What is it?” He asks again, and she knows she won’t get away from it.

“I went into the kitchen,” she says, looking down at it somewhat sheepishly, realising how it sounds.

“Jemma…” the sigh is long and drawn out, but fond. “Whatever possessed you to do that?”

There’s rather a lot of reasons, but the simplest of them all is, “Rebellion.”

“Ah I see. The ultimate act.” He runs his thumb gently over the bandage. “What is it?”

“A burn.” She thinks it over. “Or technically a scald. The kettle was heavier than I was expecting it to be.”

“Oh,” he says lowly, but he can’t reproach her as much as he would like to because it’s not like Fitz spends any great deal of time in the kitchen himself. “Do they know?”

She laughs. “Of course not. I did it late at night. I only wanted some tea and I didn’t see the need to wake anybody up.”

“You’ll be known as Queen Jemma the Considerate,” he remarks, finally letting go of her wrist, and try as she might otherwise, Jemma finds she misses his touch when it goes. “You needn’t have bothered hiding it. Your mother would have leaked it for good press herself.”

She wishes his observations were dramatic or exaggerated, but it’s unfortunate that they’re spot on. “Yes, but then she would have asked me a thousand questions and lectured me and then forbade me from ever doing it again.” She laughs sadly. “How ridiculous is that? Twenty-five years old, a princess, and still not allowed to make myself a cup of tea.”

“Well I kind of get her point if you’re going to scald yourself.” But the light tone is forced, and they both know what the truth really is. It’s pointless to try and hide these things from each other. It taints their relationship, turns it into something muddier than what it is.

Fitz digs into his pocket and brings out something, holding whatever it is very tightly in his hands. “Speaking of questions…” he begins, looking down at his hands. “Should I even ask this time if you’ll marry me?”

He unfurls his fingers and holds out his hand to her, a black velvet box sitting on his palm. Jemma’s breath hitches when she looks at it, such a small item causing such a quickening of her heart that for a second she’s sure it’ll jump out of her chest. She knows that, if she were to open it, there would be a silver engagement ring with a pear-drop emerald that once belonged to his grandmother.

She doesn’t take the box. She doesn’t open it. she simply stares at it for a long time and says, “Oh, Fitz.”

He understands in a moment what she means, and he quickly curls his fingers over it again and slips it back into his pocket, buttoning it tightly. “Guessing that’s a no then,” he says lightly, but he doesn’t look at her.

It makes her heart ever so sad, and there’s so much apology she wants to express but she can’t. All she can say is, “Fitz…”

“It’s fine, Jemma, honestly.” He looks at her, and his eyes are still shining but the blue is less brilliant, and she knows the pain she has caused him by her latest silence on the subject. “I should be used to it by now. That’s what, seven times now?”

“Six,” she corrects softly. “It’s only six. And it’s not that I don’t want to. You know it’s not.”

“I know. Just thought the wicked queen might have finally changed her mind.”

Jemma thinks of her mother and her utter, immovable insistence on Jemma marrying someone of value, as she puts it. Sometime that’s from a good family with a good name and a good bloodline, preferably someone they’re related to in a ninth or tenth manner. Fitz’s father may be a General, his mother may be the youngest daughter of a Viscount, and he may have been good enough to be selected to be amongst her group of friends ever since she was five years old, but he’s not good enough to be her husband.

Her mother is adamant, her father is indifferent, and her grandmother thinks he’s a ‘nice boy, but not a nice king’. It’s an argument that Jemma will not bow down to or lose just to make everyone happy. It’s not something she will compromise on. She will marry Leopold James Fitz or she will marry nobody at all. If it weren’t for the pesky Act of heirs requiring the sovereign’s permission, then she would have done it already.

“Unfortunately not I’m afraid,” she says, falsely cheery. “I’m working on it though. I promise you. What about your father?”

Fitz smiles, which is rare when talking about his father. “My father saying no to me marrying the future Queen of Britain? Jemma, there’s no chance of that. In fact, if it’s the taxpayer thing your parents are worried about then you should tell them not to, I feel like mine would personally foot the bill.”

That’s another mark against the Fitz family, according to her mother. There’s too much ambition with General Fitz, and his desire for a higher place in the world and a name for himself is something that hasn’t escaped her own family’s notice. Unable to take it out on the man, they take it out on his son.

“No, no. If only it were the taxpayer bill,” she smiles sadly. “It’s… oh you know what it is. I’ve told you so many times.”

“Not noble enough, not rich enough and not English enough. I’ve gotten the list memorised by now.” He smiles self-deprecatingly, but Jemma knows that he’s only sad because these things prevent their marriage. They are not things he wishes to have. Besides, she happens to think he looks rather handsome in a kilt.

They stare at each other a long moment, and despite the yearnings of her heart Jemma knows what she should do. She should tell him to move on, let her go. She should tell him to stop trying for her because they’re a family of monsters and so she may be destined to become one herself. There is no getting out of this.

And she goes to tell him. She really does. It’s on the tip of her tongue, but when she opens her mouth to do so what comes out is, “Will you wait?”

Horrified at what she’s just said, and before Fitz can respond, she hurries on to say, “I know it’s completely ridiculous and I know I should be telling you the opposite. After all there’s no guarantee of anything, and I can’t give you anything except these promises I keep making you. It’s selfish and cruel and I’m sorry and feel free to tell me to shove it, but-” and she looks down at the log they sit on and says, “but will you?”

She almost dreads looking into his face, and when she can manage it she’s surprised to see that he’s smiling, and it’s a proper, brilliant smile, that calms her fears and soothes her worries in spite of itself.

“I can’t believe you’re even asking me that question,” and if it weren’t for the smile she would feel very afraid. “You know I will. Always.”

“But it could be a long time,” she warns, needing him to understand what waiting really means. It means waiting until she can change the mind of her family, or waiting until every other eligible young man disappears suddenly. It means waiting until she is monarch. Her father is in his fifties. “Really, Fitz, if you can’t then let me know. Please. I don’t want you to spare my feelings. There could be someone you want to marry in the future that’s far less complicated than me. I just need you to think about it. I need you to know what this is going to be like.”

“Pretty much like we’ve been living for the past three years?” He says, still smiling that insufferable smile as though there is no problem in the world they cannot overcome. He takes her hands in his – somehow they are still warm in the midst of this. “Don’t you get it yet? There’s no other life I want. It’s you I marry or nobody at all.”

“But-”

“No,” he says firmly, shaking his head. “I love you. Always have, always will. How I feel about you hasn’t changed and will never change, alright? If this is all we get then it’s all we get.”

Jemma bites her lip, believing him with everything. There’s nobody like Fitz, there’s never going to be anybody like him. He knows that she really wanted to study biology at university, and not international relations. He knows that, despite all of the exquisite cakes the royal kitchen prepares, her favourite thing will always be a chocolate digestive. He knows that, despite the façade the outside world and her family see, she loves deeply and fiercely, and much more than anyone can imagine.

“But it really might be all we get,” she says, close to tears.

“I know,” he says, brushing her cheek with his thumb and she realises that a tear has escaped after all. “I’m here for the long haul, Jemma. I know you, all of you. There’s nothing that your family has hidden that could scare me away.”

“Okay,” she whispers, smiling. Out of all of the six proposals, it’s this one she has the most faith in. One day they’ll do it, she’s certain.

“You on the other hand,” he says, pulling back. “What if one day you find a really handsome prince from Sweden and decide you just can’t live without him?”

Startled, she looks at him in alarm, but feels decidedly indignant when she sees he’s only teasing. “That’s cruel,” she tells him, as he grins wider. “You know it’s you or nothing. Otherwise I would have accepted the Duke of Kent when he asked.”

“The Duke of _Kent?_ ” Fitz’s face screws up, as Jemma’s had when she found out that old playmate of theirs had sent a proposal in a letter, which was suspiciously worded more like a business contract than anything else. “His cousin works for the _Daily Mail_. I can’t believe your mother would accept that but not me.”

“It’s his third cousin, actually,” she says primly, but she had felt exactly the same way. Neglecting to tell him that her mother had been more concerned with the _Duke_ part, she huffs good-naturedly. “And it’s not as though your own cousin is blameless.”

Fitz rolls his eyes. “Let me guess, Hunter’s been causing trouble again?” When Jemma nods, he smiles and says, “Good for him.”

Lance Hunter is a freelance journalist who is well known for his lengthy, some would say _ranting,_ critiques of the government and the establishment. It amuses Jemma and infuriates her family, which only amuses her more.

“Blame my grandfather,” Fitz says. “I’m assuming that’s what your family do. My father certainly does. Too much freedom for his middle son, that’s what he says. I think he’s just jealous.”

Once upon a time Fitz used to be so concerned with what his father thought of him and tried too hard to please him. Now he just finds him amusing, as though he’s merely a spectator to his family and is not the man’s son.

“Is he still trying to send you to Sandhurst?”

“Definitely. You have to admire the old man’s tenacity. He’s still convinced he’ll make an Army officer of me yet.”

“And you do nothing to discourage him?”

“What’s the point? He never listens.”

Jemma smiles. “Oh gee, if only there was someone who understood what that was like.”

Fitz smiles but says nothing, and begins to pick at the picnic again. They could go around and around in circles in this conversation and it would always lead them back to the same place.

Eventually the weather gets too wild and they have to reluctantly call it day. They shake everything off and pack it up as the wind begins to howl around them, the trees quivering and raindrops the size of golf balls falling penetrating through forest. It had been calm while they were talking, Jemma notices only now. There hadn’t been any wind or rain at all.

Fitz brings out an umbrella from nowhere and hands it to Jemma for their walk back through the trees. When she offers to share it he shakes his head. “The path’s only wide enough for one. You take it. I’ve got a hood.”

On their way they throw up ridiculous suggestions at ways they could get Jemma’s parents to agree to the marriage. It ranges from hypnotisation to personality transplants to forging birth certificates and claiming Jemma is adopted. Fitz offers to poison the Duke of Kent, which, though not entirely undesirable, would do nothing to help their present situation.

“Abdication?” He says at one point. “You wouldn’t need our children to be heirs if you’re not an heir anymore.”

Jemma shakes her head as she tries not to smile. “Imagine the scandal. They’d never forgive me.”

“Your uncle did it.”

 _“Great-_ uncle, and nobody has forgiven him. He lives in Gibraltar now.”

“Well that’s just not right,” Fitz says, bottom lip tripping out. “He did it for love.”

Jemma sometimes still can’t believe what the Press Office manages to get the public to believe.

“They said that, but he did it for money.”

“He was King!”

“And being King comes with responsibilities. He just wanted money he could spend and that wouldn’t be scrutinised by Parliament.”

“Well that sucks. I always thought he was a romantic.”

“No,” Jemma says, almost sorry to disappoint. “Just another dodgy royal, I’m afraid.”

Far too soon they’re standing at the edge of the lawn and the walls of the castle rise up in front of them, grey and imposing. Jemma can make out the equally as imposing figure of Tom standing quietly at the patio doors. She wonders if her family are sitting behind them. She wonders if they see her with Fitz, someone they seem determined to keep at arm’s length from her.

“Well,” Fitz says, suddenly awkward as he shifts from one foot to the other. “This is as far as I go.”

“You could come in for some tea?” She offers. “I could even make it.”

“As much as I would love to see that,” he gestures to Tom, “I feel like he’s standing there to make sure I don’t.”

Tom will be there looking for her, with instructions to come and locate her if the rain gets any harder. After all, nobody wants to lose the first in line to the throne in a thunderstorm.

And suddenly she’s angry, angrier than she’s ever been in this whole situation. How dare they make Fitz feel as though he isn’t welcome? He is her life, her heart, and her home. She would have him by her side always if they let her.

In this moment, she vows she will do it. She will make them agree to it. She will sit in the living room and not move an inch, not perform another engagement, not do anther speech until they see sense. She will draw up the abdication papers herself and she will wave them under her parents’ noses until they let her have her way. She will be the very person she has tried not to be her whole life because if she’s to spend the rest of it shackled by duty to a thankless job then at the very least she can have the person she loves the most by her side.

In a fit of longing, she throws herself at Fitz, just managing to avoid hitting him with the umbrella, and holds on tightly. When Fitz’s arms come around her and squeeze just as tightly, she feels as safe as she ever could.

“I’ll do it,” she says forcefully over the pounding rain and howling wind. “We can’t waste any more time.”

“Time with you is never a waste, Jemma,” Fitz murmurs, his voice soft against her ear.

She smiles and pulls back, before she does something stupid like cry. Fitz doesn’t completely let her go, however, and only a moment of indecision crosses his face before he takes the umbrella from her hand, dips her slightly, and presses his lips to hers for rather a long time.

When she is righted, her head still spins, and Fitz stands in front of her looking incredibly pleased with himself.

“I hope that gave them a good show,” he says, grinning from ear to ear. “And I hope there’s a photographer about here somewhere. If it’s in the papers then your mother will have to say yes.”

And then he hands her back the umbrella and bows charmingly, before walking off, adjusting his rucksack with a spring in his step as though he can conquer the world. As Jemma walks back to the castle, soaking wet and hair plastered to her face which harbours the cheesiest grin, she thinks that she completely understands the feeling.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday again to my wonderful bean!!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. I hope everyone is safe and doing well, and I hope you have a lovely day!


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